This thread is intended to discuss the awesomeness that is The Deadmines and why TBC could really use some more pirates. Or more abstractly, what can be taken away from the most successful dungeon in an mmo ever when looking to expand upon said successful MMO.

Let's start things off with a simple walk through, in case anyone has missed the deadmines. If you don't feel the need to read through this, feel free to skip down to the **.

** Start Rambling Walkthrough**

The deadmines is a level 20ish 5 man instance at the end of the main line human quest series that deal with the defias. It's located in westfall and has multiple quest tie ins from both stormwind, and westfall. The zone contains a pre-instance trash section, which also has relevant quests from stormwind and westfall, and that pre-instance trash section even has a "hostile" town which shows on the map and even gets a mini-map "pointer" arrow if you run by it. That town, Moonbrooke, features in at least 2 quests both before and after the relevant deadmines section, so it's well known by any player attempting any significance portion of duskwood, westfall, or even just stopping in stormwind long enough to turn in a quest or two.

The deadmines is a linear dungeon, although the entirety of the dungeon doesn't vary much more than 4 levels. The first clear to a boss is composed of more of the same mobs you have already seen from outside the instance (which you presumably killed while questing earlier). The trash starts with simple single pulls, and builds up slowly as you move further.

The first boss has a door behind him, and is very obviously a 'special' encounter as you have _never_ seen an ogre up until that point on the main line human chains. The boss has a pair of extra mobs, which you've already learned are cc'able from the previous clear. When you go through the door beyond the first boss, you run into single pulls (again) of a new mob type, with plenty of room to run around should you need to. You'll need to, as you will likely (On your first run ever) have a patrol show up from behind while you're still wondering what to do with the items from the ogre.

The following trash is more of the same, and then we find another door. Opening the door we see goblins! All of them with large axes, chopping away, and we can hear a largish sounding mechanical saw. The goblins are relatively straightforward, and during the time in which it takes to clear them away we will certainly notice the giant patrolling shredder on our left. It patrols across the entire field of view from the door, and it's 5 times the size of the other goblins. Also, it's the subject of a quest.

Boss 2 is relatively straightforward - he starts almost identically to boss one, although he looks very different. The changes are: he patrols, and when you kill him the goblin hops out to do battle. (The first 2 stage boss fight in wow. Sneed jumping out of his wrecked shredder to punch you.) Doorway music I wonder what's behind this?

Oh. A giant foundry, lava pouring down, a ledge to look down, and...more goblins! Neatly visible from our vantage point? ANOTHER DOOR! Huzzah. It must be ours! A more subtle touch: the entire clear down to boss 3 is downhill, which is incredibly forgiving to line of sight, which in turn makes the new mobs easier as they have relevant ranged attacks and may need to be pulled back up. Mobs are once again introduced in the "one new guy, one new guy, two new guys" pattern, and they are visually distinctive. Some goblins have a torch and a flame attack, others have a gun and summon mechanical (that you've also already seen in westfall).

The boss himself is in the midst of the other workers, and has both a distinctive look (Larger, different outfit) but is also right in front of another door. Kill the boss, door opens - or at least that's been the case so far. This boss doesn't have anything particularly difficult about him - aside from the density of the mobs leading up to him. The lesson from this room is "pulling". The next passage way is more of the same miners we've come to expect, but more densely packed. The tunnel ends in, you guessed it, a door. This door is locked, but as per the formula, the solution rests squarely in front of it (A cannon). Alternatively, you could have a rogue open it. So the scouring of the dungeon goes on and you find the powder - light the fuse, and boom. Door open.

At this point you have a loud voice - "Check that out" and text "Mr.Smite yells: <blah>" that both indicate who the next target of choice is. The pirates (the new mob for this section) rush at you in twos, and you go from there. Note that even here the first pull is 2 of the same pirate, and then you get different pirates in a measured well paced order until you arrive at smite. Of course, you could also jump off the bridge and go swimming - but almost noone does. The bridge is a straight line to the boss. Admittedly, there are some ninja's hiding at the base of the ramp. Stay on your toes, lubber.

Mr Smite himself is an excellent follow up to sneed - his first form is very dull, similar to the ogre boss. He then stomps the ground (stunning you) and gives an emote (letting you know what happened and what he's going to do) and then goes to get a weapon, out of a chest (usually running away from the group enough that the group can react). More damage out of him now, and then he does the same thing again - with a different emote and a different weapon. Then you kill him and he drops something that isn't smite's mighty hammer (or that might just be my experience).

Bashing along we come to our first real decision regarding paths. We can go left (cookie and exit and a not hugely obvious path) or right up the giant scaffold. Most new groups I've seen go right. Fight your way up the stairs, and once again we have a patrolling, very different looking, boss mob at the top that we can see from miles away (who apparently suffers from the ongoing pandemic of boss-blindness-syndrome. Donate today, your 2$ could save a boss's eyesight.) The space we have to fight the captain + 2 adds is enormous, and this is helpful as some groups might not have a tank used to tanking more than one mob, or the cc to lock down 2. It also has a very well designed set of "pathing mistake prone" areas where you can run (as a player) and have the mob run a long way to get to you. This is good for newbies, as it adds some survivability to their instinctive "run away it's crushing me" behavior.

After you deal with the captain, you see...wait a moment, telephone...He says it's a door.

Behind the door? Van Cleef - standing ominously inside his little hut atop the boat inside the cave. Yes, folks, the first (of many) what the heck is he doing here instead of vacationing in California moments. Van cleef rolls elements from each of the previous fights together. He has multiple adds, he has an emote tied to special abilities. You kill him, (completing a quest) and he even drops a letter quest that explicitly tells you where to go for the next dungeon.

Looking around from the top of the boat? Why, there's a cave over there, with a plank leading to it. Guess that's our way out. (Shockingly it is.) You can even see murky, er, cookie <ship's cook> from here. I suppose we'll have to kill the murloc (since we kill every murloc on principle ever since they ate our toes at level 9).

You exit the dungeon from a different entrance - neatly avoiding having to fight all the various entrance stuff that has surely re-spawned since you "beat" it. You've come out with some items, completed some quests and picked up others. Even with a great story to tell about the ninja pirate murlocs, or was it a cow?

"I can't remember..." (even though you do, every moment of it)
"it was awesome." (Yes it was)

** End Rambling Walkthrough **

If only I had been able to find Chester Copperpot...

I loved the Deadmines, it defined the moment in WoW alpha when I knew this was the game for the next 4 years. Very good summary of its highlights and design.

The only thing I can add is that the dungeon was a beautiful close to the Westfall chapter in the human territory questing life. "Winning" deadmines also gives the human characters a deeper sense of ownership in their race's history/events.

I think some of the instances (the Auchindoun ones in particular) don't have even 60% of the zone tie-in that the Deadmines did.

Oh, the Sentinel Hill yelling when you finished the quest story arc was a really nice touch

I'm really quite hopeful that black temple adds the same feel to shadowmoon valley - although I was surprised to find out that kael had the words instead of illidan.

I've got to say that this post has certainly brought back fond memories for me. On my first toon I ended up running VC 5 times in 3 days (which is a lot for a casual like me). Having Gary Stoutmantle (IIRC) yell about my success across the zone is on my short list of memorable WoW moments.

When we get new players to the game, I always encourage them to run VC a -lot- as I think it's one of the best places to L2P at that stage of the game. Yes, group roles change as you get higher in level, but you learn your basics in VC.

Definitely...having leveled to at least 60 on both sides, SFK is a much better analogue to Deadmines than either Ragefire or Wailing Caverns. Back when I was a hordie, I faced WC runs with extreme dread. The instance is incredibly long and very easy to get lost in. The one redeeming quality was that a couple bosses were neat to look at, particularly the enormous one at the very top. That was my first "holy crap, that's awesome!" moment in WoW. I'm not sure I had that same sense of size and awe again until my first meetings with Ragnaros and Onyxia.

SFK does many of the same things right that Deadmines does. Very atmospheric, pretty linear, an entire zone worth of lore leading up to the confrontation with Arugal. It's a shame that the first two Horde instances are so lackluster; I skipped SFK entirely on my first character because I got so turned off to instances by WC!

Edit: Punctuation

I feel that Deadmines is vastly superior to Wailing Caverns, which is unfortunate because I've been playing Horde for the last year-and-a-half.

Deadmines is solid and simple. Wailing Caverns is a long, ridiculous maze. Deadmines has an entire zone-full of lore driving it. WC has a relatively misplaced questline behind it which doesn't really go anywhere outside of "Kill these guys and get this pretty sword."

One of the biggest things for me is the length. WC seems much, much longer than Deadmines, which leads to many many many broken parties, failed runs and fake LDs. Especially since it's almost exclusively PuG'd, and very often by new players who may or may not feel like sitting around killing the same purple night elves for 3 hours.

The only flaws I find with Deadmines are the lore petering out after you kill VC and the fact that the quest rewards are so similar to VC drops (leather chest, staff).

Do you remember the first time you saw the Princess in Maraudon? I actually got a pretty good laugh out of that. I was not, in any way, expecting a 15ft, overweight, vaguely Asian, 3 faced, gassing monster.

Deadmines is great, it's probably one of my favorite instances, and this is a good write up as to everything they did right here. However I feel it's an incomplete analysis as you didn't really touch on its flaws.

1. Overtuned mobs. Specifically, the Defias Pillagers outside the instance are some of the most difficult mobs in the game, 2-3 of their fireballs can kill a same level character, before many classes have the abilities to interrupt reliably. They are positioned densely in the town outside the instance. It never fails that a new player attempts to run through that courtyard to get to the instance and is cut down in hail of pillager fire, mostly as they run out(previously unseen) from houses. The Goblin Woodcutters also have an obnoxious amount of health; but not nearly as obnoxious as the heavily armored mechanicals the Goblin Engineers summon. Worse, since the summoning is a cast, it frequently feels like a penalty that cannot be avoided.

2. Pathing Issues. For new players, the odd LOS mechanics of the boat(boats are the worst offenders of strange pathing in this game) make huge pulls of death likely. Further, the natural instinct being to run, as you mentioned, leads to players jumping on the mob-inaccessible areas, exposing the limitations of the game engine when mobs begin to evade, breaking immersion.

3. Bad itemization: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=1156 +2 agi +6 int ring
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=5195 cloth +4 str +3 int gloves

Though the loot is certainly a step up from the randomly generated greens, it should probably at least follow some semblence of logic. No cloth class needs strength, so why was that item created, other than to potentially confuse new players on what they should be looking for on gear?

Things I am on the fence about:
4. Rear Patrols - The 3 pack that spawns and slowly chases the players through the instance is an interesting idea, as it forces a greater sense of awareness and gives a sense of urgency. But it's also a rather large penalty for partial wipes, as reuiniting the group afterwards could be painful. Also, I can't say I would be a fan of this idea being reused.

5. Bosses. Well, it's worth pointing out that none of the bosses have any noticeable abilities whatsoever. They are larger trash mobs. Of course, this is the first alliance instance, so you wouldn't expect them to crank up the difficulty. But if the fights were more complicated, that might involve bosses's rooms being different designs, and I'd be willing to say some of the charming simplicity of the instance is partially due to the overall low demands on the level designer.

Anyway, good write up. The place is strikingly well polished, and it's telling that I find myself waiting for my alts to get to "deadmines range" and yet that feeling just does not exist, for say, Gnomeregan.

I don't think the design of deadmines was in any way special or unique.

What makes deadmines excellent is that there are actual characters in the dungeon. I could tell you the backstory of Van Cleef, for example.

I couldn't even tell you the names of the bosses of, say, Underbog, despite clearing it several times. As far as I have been made to care, the instance could be filled with mobs named TRASH MOB 1, TRASH MOB 2, BOSS 1, QUEST NPC 1, and it'd be all the same to me. Faceless random enemies to kill.

Very different from a certain stonemason betrayed by the nobles of Stormwind.

Great writeup, Deadmines is a great starter instance with only a few problems with it (the 3 pathing mobs that start at the beginning are the only issues I see with the instance).

Kudos to blizzard when they made this instance, I am sure this polished instance encourged people to continue to level.